Masson's trichrome should work. It will stain for collagen which will help determine fibrosis, cardiac myocytes and keratin stain in red (traditionally) which should give a good size determination. Regarding gross morphology, it depends what you mean. If you want to determine size and overall cytoplasm/nuclei it is decent however, you might just want to get an H and E for gross as that is the gold standard. 

H&E would work for all 3.  Trichrome would also work for all 3.  

To estimate muscle area, most important thing would be to make sure you're looking at true cross sections rather than tangential cuts which would artificially make the area seem bigger.  

Brandon - thank you. I have not seen H&E used for fibrosis. What color would the collagen stain? I am aware of the cross section issue.

I'm a fan of wheat germ agglutinin for staining cell border and measuring area. 

Hi Chad- I used to work as a tech in a Cardiac path lab when I first started out in HIstology. We did hundreds of cross sections of puppy heart! The gentleman that trained me said the overall best stain to use is the Movat Pentachrome stain. He trained me in that stain procedure and I have used it over and over for many types of tissue. It is incredible for detail in studying morphology. If you cannot find it, let me know and I will send the procedure to you. Good Luck and Happy Staining!

Fibrosis on H&E should appear more pale with a different architecture than the cardiac muscle.  

A trichrome stain would make the fibrosis easier to pick up and may help identify subtle fibrosis which is not obvious on H&E. 

Hi - I forgot to ask last time I posted- have you used any of the enzyme stains for ATPase-NAD-FAD-FADH?

Judy

Judith, I have done  myosin ATPase in skeletal muscle. 

Good evening,

just as a proposal: for cf. also an old RG-thread @: https://www.researchgate.net/post/Fibrosis_detection

and another one @ https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_can_I_quantify_fibrosis_in_a_stained_slide? 

and another, short one @ https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_can_I_quantify_muscular_fibrosis

Best of luck an regards, Wolfgang

Dear colleague,

I agree with Judith about Movat's pentachrome, and propose to consider use of our modification of the staining: Petrovic A, Abramovic M, Mihailovic D, Gligorijevic J, Zivkovic V, Mojsilovic M, Ilic I. Multicolor counterstaining for immunohistochemistry -- a modified Movat's pentachrome. Biotech Histochem. 2011 Dec;86(6):429-35. This variant of Movat's pentachrome staining could be carried out in a laboratory for 60-70 minutes, independently of immunohistochemistry. Only, I advise a  use 1ml of HCL in aldehyde fuchsin solution (instead of 2ml), or to make an adaptation suitable for your material, in that range. The weak side of this staining is that after a weak or two, the safran saining intensity could be attenuated, so the micro-photographing is advised when the microscopic slides are fresh.

With the best regards,

Aleksandar

Dear Chad, dear Aleksandar,

the article cited above by Aleksandar is really nice and shows some excellent images of sections processed as described....  Chad, perhaps you have gotten meanwhile the / a pdf for personal use by Aleksandar.   For all others just for their convenience: the Article's Abstract: can be found at:  http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/10520295.2010.528026,

unfortunately BT&H (former title: Stain Technology)-articles are only accessible either by subscription or PPV (pay per view).

Have a nice day and a successful week, best regards, Wolfgang